Wondrous Things

That which induces one to wonder is wondrous.   Among the many things which were stimulating wonder and investigation was the Electoral College.  I wonder why I didn't apply for that school when I was thinking of applying to colleges and universities.  The truth is, I only got one app sent, maybe two.  Auburn wanted something more which I ignored.  I applied there and FSU at the beginning of my senior year.  FSU pretty much automatically said ok due to test scores. I was clueless.

Some schools expect some level of overall gpa.  If you have a year to go, and you aren't making super grades now, seems wise to withhold admittance until the book is closed.  So, I took the easy way.  In-state school that is the greatest distance from Miami.  Too bad all wisdom ended there.

Anyway, I've never set foot on the Electoral College campus.  However, I hear some talk about people who want to do away with the institution.  This is where freedom gets tricky, and democracy, over valued.  Pure democracy is certainly not a high virtue, it just is.   You have to limit what the collective can inflict on the minority.

Both the Senate and the Electoral College are hedges against the tyranny of the majority.  That is what it is called when freedom of the few is restricted by the many, even if it doesn't infringe on them.  The first premise to get is that the USA is a democracy in a republic.  A constitutional republic.

That means there are preset limits and parameters set which are supposed to contain those with power lust.  It's a losing battle but it does slow them down a lot.  Over time, it slows them less.

Anyway, there is a wisdom to weighting some power by geography.  For one thing it more evenly gives voice to a variety of the subcultures in this country.  I can tell you that Miami and small town Wisconsin are worlds apart.  A native of either would experience sever culture shock if he found himself in the other's town.    For me, moving to North Carolina was a huge cultural adjustment.

Eventually I learned the language and even spoke it.  Maybe I adapted because I had decided I liked NC and the people and that was that.   I absorbed some of the culture, but a real southerner can tell I'm like southern lite.  Miami left my bunch with no real sense of a culture.  Miami was never quite like the heartland even before it became majority hispanic.  We spoke english, which may have created a bond with America, and most of Miami was from NY and the midwest--interesting mix.  New Yorkers had a bad stereotype going for them back then.  Apparently there were plenty of volunteers to keep the reputation going.

A direct election based on total popular vote could result in a few big cities, primarily coastal, having control.  It could leave some very diverse, long established sub cultures out of the sphere of influence altogether.  As much of this country that is federal land, who wants their landscape controlled by a few cities which are very different from your town?

Anyway, I wondered about that but see it as a kind of safeguard.  Even if the guy who wins gets fewer popular votes, and that turns out to be the current neo-bolshevik, I won't change my tune about that fine place of higher learning.

I have a friend who thinks replacing Biden with Putin would be just what is needed to fend off this Romney fellow.

I forgot what else caused me to wonder, drat!

It seems I end up with people playing music everywhere I go.  Another little party and the people all end up playing.  That is mostly what gets me invited, I think, although it goes beyond that after awhile. It seems I am somehow a fixture in this ongoing network.   I meet some interesting people this way.  It puzzles me, though, whatever 'it' is.

I've never seen so much bluegrass and country as out in the sticks California.  That's why they call it country and western.   I'd never given much credence to western part.  Now I understand.

It is good.

I hope that storm doesn't mess up your life or your stuff.

Hmm...a few of these musicians have the means and expertise to possibly hash over some of the ideas I've had in the late 70s.  The times have almost caught up, except government subsidizes their cronies while people like me would just deal with the market.   I have no excuse for never following up on this.  I found the burn came from unexpected places so the one I did follow awhile was abandoned in confusion.  It worked, at least.

Maybe this accelerated rate of meeting those who would get this stuff, and know the flaws, is not a mistake.  Maybe it is one of those new saints delving in the affairs of man.  Saint Poccahontos.  Maybe her holiness spells it otherwise.  I'll learn the right way so that this encouraging trend continues.

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AP Racism and Freshman English, FSU

Having lived in what some would term diverse communities for much of my life, I observe with sadness and scorn the many stories I hear and see about racism.   In Miami, during the 80s and 90s, my condition of birth was shared by a minority of citizens.

What I found was that since Cubans were considered a minority in federal terms that they found it relatively easy to discriminate on any basis which suited them.  It is human nature, to a point.  Not that I didn't have plenty of Cuban friends I did.  I liked their coffee and much of the music, etc.  But life is life.

One work experience was rife with sexual and ethnic discrimination.  I was one of the very few white males (few males of any stripe) in the place, and they took their shots.  I did not pursue legal recourse or any of that, although I probably had a better case than many I've seen in the news.  Hey, if they didn't want what I had to offer I could go elsewhere.  And I did.  So, bully, woman, hispanic.  She did seem a little underhanded but I believe she seriously regretted it by the time I left.  OK. Not to the point.

Still not to the point; I was just thinking that I bring out strange things in women.  I must learn to harness this somehow.  If I could learn to direct their reaction to something less dramatic than homicide.

Now the AP has a story about some university guy's study showing explicit and implicit racism.  It mostly focusses on white against everyone.  I tend to think this is a thing which has a kernel of truth and a bushel of BS.

When you have a culture in which young people who don't act like punks are ridiculed for "acting white", would you say that is a racist phenomenon?  I would.

The study uses techniques and questions which are iffy at best.  It seems to go the way of my English professor at FSU.  He wanted us to pull all sorts of hidden meanings and symbolism out of everything.  He was very keen on homosexual symbolism.  I caught on and finally wrote a paper for the class.

To write the paper I got stoned and drunk and invented every possible bit of sexual, homosexual, and maybe even trisexual context to the most inane of passages.   It was to the point of absurdity.  He ate it up.

I fear the same is being done with the subject of racism.  Since it is tough to find outwardly and overtly in the places they look, they claim it has gone underground.  That's like that cop who asked if I was going to be a good boy and admit to stealing some stuff and tell him where it was, OR was I going to act like a criminal and deny any knowledge of it.

I didn't steal the stuff.  So, damned if you do or don't.  It is the same thing here.  According to Chris Matthews and some others, if you are not a fan of Mr. Obama's political philosophy and way of handling the job, you are clearly racist.  It carries on like that in other areas but right now any of the usual political lampooning aimed at Obama is liable to be tagged as racially motivated.  Maybe it even has a bit of sexual symbolism too.  Maybe lesbian love symbolism, I don't know, ask my ex professor.  That dimwit.

You can find prejudice and bias and racism everywhere if you choose.  That does not mean that hate and unkindness lurk there, just that you can delve into the absurd they way I did at FSU.

Those crying race over and over are doing more to foster tribal disdain for others than even the KKK.  They've done it so successfully that some black thugs have killed people and justified it with things we know nothing about like the shooting of a black kid by a jewish hispanic man in FL.  Well, his dad was jewish I think, so he may be a druid for all I know.  The point is there.

For the record, lots of people do not much like other races.  At least they prefer their daughter marry only chinese, or black, or white or hispanic or arab or whatever.  It is how people are.  That doesn't mean they carry this all that far and seek to eliminate or even hurt the feelings of others.  They usually don't.

I remember a jewish guy getting the very evil eye for bringing me into his house in high school.  I remember a black guy's grandmother not so discretely cussing him out for dragging me in the door.  It happens.  I knew they meant no awful harm, and I figured maybe they were right--I'm a bad influence.

Oh, I should explain.  The default nationality in my discussions is my own, USA American.  Since the friends mentioned above were also born citizens, I did not list a continent or country in order to describe them adequately for the purpose of the story.  Continentally, we were all American-Americans, even though Canada and a bunch of places are in South American and North America.  It's a quiz to name which one contains Canada and Mexico.  You got a 50/50 shot, and everyone in my class passes if they pay the green fee.  That's what I call it, "a green fee".   Save the world, pay up.  You'd never guess that my teaching career started and ended on the same day.

The thing is, people in parts of California, or in Wisconsin or more homogenous places read these stories and assume all this racism must be southern white rednecks out to make trouble.  Some of that may exist but nothing like they pretend.  So, people outside actual interaction with lots and lots of other ethnicities form opinions about the fiction they are fed as fact.

All the while ignoring that, per capita, blacks are highly racist--far more so than whites in this century---, hispanics are more tribal than whites, and often rival blacks in their racist thinking.  It is obvious and easily tested.  Go walk into a predominately black area of Memphis.  If you are black walk into a white area.  The former has a 99% chance of being harassed or beaten or otherwise made to feel unwelcome. The latter has maybe a 10% chance of receiving dirty looks and maybe a rude question.

People know this.  Yet the race thing is still played as if it is some other way.  That is the reality of the here and now.  Study it, search for it, make your Jesse money off of it, or maybe try to quit fueling it and pitting group against group--usually based upon condition of birth.  This mythological belief system must go.  Maybe one person doesn't like another or disagrees with him or her, and the whole race thing is secondary, or so far from the issue at hand that no one has thought of it.

Crying racism, even though you have to claim it is underground, is much easier than actually debating philosophy or dancing through a logical syllogism.  It is shameless pandering and an attempt to discredit and squelch opposition without having to explore and win a point in discussion.

I've got no time for racism, I'm too busy being islamaphobic, and for good reason.

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Stay Dry Easties

While we sweat the Santa Anas and heightened fire risks, you nor'easters are in for another assault altogether.  If you live on low land that could flood, don't wait until the water is way up and you have to sit atop the chimney.

These events always cause me to think of the value of being able to produce electricity on site.  It is silly that by now most buildings aren't self sufficient.  But we have to subsidize our friends while pretending this is a government job.

Don't forget, it was the same basic bunch who made it illegal to produce your own power not so long ago.  Those of you in love with regulation no doubt bought the story at the time that it was for your safety and so everyone would pay their fair share.

OK, so most places are dependent.  That means those in the storm path need to get things set so you can get by without official utilities for awhile.  If you worry about FEMA or someone not coming and getting you out of your house or telling you that breathing is easier above sea level, then I guess we'll see you on the news.

Hurricanes and other storms are pretty much a game of doing for yourself what you can with what you've got.  There will be a few people in your neighborhood who can think.  Glue yourself to one if you are baffled about which way is up.  Or, if you thrive in such emergencies,  calm the panicked ones who may seek your counsel in one way or another.

Good luck.  I hope it goes away and nobody loses anything.

Genetically Controversial

One of the ballot initiatives, here in California, deals with genetically modified food labeling.    At first glance I thought, oh, I wonder what defines genetically modified.  Several strains of various vegetation have been created or modified by grafting, hybridization, and tweaking this and that to aid in the natural selection process.  Does that count?

I also thought it would be interesting to see if most of what I eat falls into the genetically modified food group.  But I had to delve a little into the measure to see what I could see.  What I could see was that some food which matters not to me has to be labelled while other products don't.

Without coming right out and saying it, the measure almost calls out company names and insists they label, while being sure to lay down big speed bumps for mom and pop operations and small farmers.  It is not even across the board.

That is usually the case with regulation that looks dandy on its face, but then turns out to be a case of special interest and/or company A getting something in to screw over company and/or special interest B.  The old government-business partnership which we are told is commerce heaven.

I'd like to know if my chips have been modified with some kind of gene that makes me stupid if I eat it, but this initiative doesn't look like a reliable way to know anything.  Dog food would be required to label but some things that I actually eat wouldn't.  I forgot the specifics.  They lost me when I realized that when they drew the line they gerrymandered to include some but not others.

Today, in a parking lot, a guitar player's wife asked me if I eat genetically modified food.  Probably.  She has a sticker on their car in favor of prop 36 or whichever it is.  I asked if this wouldn't add to food costs and administrative costs.  "Oh no, they just have to add a little to the label, it costs almost nothing. Vote for it, that is all you need to do."   I pretended I would, even though we already know my mail-in ballot has already been sent in, read, and tossed in the trash by my political adversaries.

I'm pretty sure I voted NO because I saw it as an open door to cutthroat corruption, and because implementing it and enforcing it are sure to affect costs, and now we have more food police bureaucracy.  Maybe if it had not been such a pick and choose type of thing.

That was what blew me away back when NAFTA came about.  I skimmed it---a rather hefty tome--and discovered they named specific companies and dictated who could do what where.  That is not free trade, that is the spoils go to political allies and those who own a piece of government.  If it is not a document describing principles and rules, but rather one bestowing certain rights to specific firms, then it is garbage.  That's my view.

Anyway, what if the genetically enhanced food I've been eating has twisted my mind and if it were untwisted I'd not think this way at all?  I'll bet I could sue someone if only I could remember what I thought before their genes made me think like this.

Shock therapy.  Like what put me off of Playboy way back when.   I was in the Air Guard doing about 25 or so make up drills.  Since they had no women's barracks, they put me up at a Holiday Inn.  Had to be equal.  So, I was wild and crazy and ended up with a slightly older woman who had a fairly new set of enhanced hoots.  Ever since, I have preferred real life.   The stuff in the magazines all looked fake after that.

Just my luck, as time went on this sort of installed baggage up top has become way too common and popular.  I say, if you aren't reconstructing, just leave it be.  In any case, my view of such matters changed and stayed that way.

So what would shock me into not thinking how I think?  See what genetically modified food does to one's mind?  Maybe that explains our governor, ex governor, senators and difficulty of legally throwing anything away.


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Dots

The nature of where I work, and for whom, often puts me in a position to watch the dots connect on some minor level which ties into the big picture and the things we see and hear on news outlets.  It is very strange and can be interesting.  Due to past experiences, it is not surprising to see how vastly different public talk is from behind the scenes actions.   Anyone should know that.

After all, how many times have we seen public figures and celebrities arrive on the scene in a private jet or limousine, then proceed to tell us about the evils of carbon footprints or using more than one square of toilet paper.  Hypocrisy may the best word to describe the times.  We've had various ages throughout history; stone age, iron age, age of reason, renaissance, and now the age of hypocrisy.   You have avowed racists labeling everyone else as racist, and very wealthy people instigating class warfare.

It seems unprofessional to give details regarding my work circumstance or specific discoveries which connect dots to the highest levels of national politics.  I will say that the sunrise powerlink project which I've mentioned many times was a money making scheme and possibly had more motive, none of it actually involving green energy as claimed.  It does touch politicians of both parties, and some of their money people behind the scenes.

It does no good to know what goes on because there is nothing to do about it, and most people would rather hold on to myth than confront truth.  I would.  But I do not look up to the big players except for the fact that they are energetic and not lazy.  But they are not very good people.

Lately, though, I don't know if I think of myself as very good people.  Not all the bad, just not worth much.  This may change.

Nonsense

That was the gist of the previous post.

So, now on to life and worry.  It is not in my power to put into words the things I actually want to put in writing.  The thought is there, but not clear and defined.  I think the truth is too harsh for me to explore unless it is heavily sugar coated.

That is one theory, anyway.  It is not so easy to be who I am or am not.

I smooth the guilt for my negligence by doing odd good deeds as opportunities arise.  

We shall see what happens.

If You Read Nothing Else before you vote, Read This

OK, now all the presidential debates are over.  The main dog and pony show is over, and if you are like me, you need to be told what to think of whatever you saw, heard or read.

So, I'm willing to go without so that I may tell you what to think etc.

I only heard the last, maybe 40 minutes of the scholarly intercourse on the car radio.  On the way home from Poway practice.  This guy's stuff is hitting on a style of playing I have been after but rarely find.  It is the sort of thing that relies on more nuanced, clean playing than when I am with a plugged in, drummer backed band.  Johnathan may have landed a drummer, so we'll be semi plugged in.  Still driven by his 12 string guitar, which he can pull off.  And the bass player is really making a difference. He's getting aggressive and taking chances which are hitting the mark, musically.

Oh, back to what you must do.  I was going to suggest you write me in for Nobel Prize.  But, after weeks of writting up petitions and campaign posters, they tell me that no Nobel Prizes will be voted on in the November election.  Not on the ballot.

Imagine my shock.  Maybe you should write me in for every office, local state and national, to protest this injustice.

Oh yea, the girl singer was doing an eery high harmony on one song, and the notes were up in the highest three on the D harp.  That is high.  I'd have to do the musical equivalent of counting on my fingers to pin down the exact note by name and social security number.  Very clear and unstrained.  It is cool to go to the same note and work it so that you can't tell the voice from the harp then we go to different notes.

All you need to know is that you're in tune.  It is the most important thing.  That is why you needed to read this if nothing else.  Without being in tune, the rest becomes irrelevant.

Aren't I deep?

I was enjoying the drive home from work and practice, realizing that I've never lived in a place this geographically interesting.  But for just the ocean and beach my favorite is NC Outer Banks.  No cowboy mountains out there, though.  Easier to live where I am.  Easier for me, not everyone. But I tend to be mobile.  Somehow, though, even when I'm restless, I have little desire to get away from here. Laws and taxes and such would be the only reason I'd cut out, I think.  So far, it is OK.

Now that I think of it, it is possible that there may be something more important to read before you vote.  Can't imagine what; unless maybe you are walking right now and there is a "NO TRESPASSING__WE WIL KILL YOU!" sign just ahead.  It is better that you read that sign, comprehend it, and avoid trespassing.   It is tough to think of anything more important to read.

Jury duty.  October 31.  Halloween hangin' I guess.  Ha. Anyone knows that isn't true.  I would not throw the book at people who don't deserve it.  This is the second time in a couple of years.  I sat around for a few hours, then they sent us home.  I doubt I'd get on a jury if they asked me questions that touch on just about any subject.

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

So, I spotted a story about the Pope (el Papa, if you are from S. Florida) naming seven new saints.  Apparently this move was to spark interest in certain groups around the world.  I don't know.  They finally have a native American saint--not sure what tribe.  Probably had high cheek bones like the Massachusetts politician.  My info could be bad, but I detected a hint of PC pandering in this big saint fest.

Maybe it was Pocahontas who got tagged for sainthood.  That would make sense.

I'm thinking the Church has been infiltrated by the people who run the Nobel Committee---especially those responsible for awarding the peace prize.  If they start canonizing jihadists we'll know the church has finally jumped the shark.

Don't think this guy made the cut, nor his alter ego over his shoulder there.  Like many holy men, he freaks me out and I wouldn't want him in my car or house.  I think he's holding a molotov cocktail which he's about to light and throw.  Now, you don't see the Pope doing that.  Give credit where it is due.

I did not see myself on his list.  Even my mother was not on the list and everyone knows she was a saint.  My ex-wife didn't make it, but that is probably less surprising than it should be. Somehow, I'm just not buying it.  The people who invent things like air conditioning or toilet paper are never recognized by the Church, any church, and they have done more to alleviate pain and suffering than all the holy persons I've ever met, or about whom I've read or heard.

Those were just two examples of helpful inventions and things that make life better, not the only ones.  If you've ever had a migraine headache and happened to be lucky enough that the prescribed pills worked, I can tell you that, at that moment, the inventor of those pills was holier in your aching eyes than any pope or mullah or rabbi or saint.

Could my bad attitude and irreverence result in Benny appearing like this, floating around in my room giving me the stink eye?  I hope not.  Now I won't be able to sleep--I'll be too scared.  Always getting into trouble.

This is why I will probably never be admitted into the priesthood, and it is unlikely that I will ever be named Pope.


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I.B.

There are a number of Bs in the San Diego area; OB, PB, IB, and maybe even more I can't recall.   In North Carolina OB means Outer Banks, and it is one splendid coastal area, maybe my favorite ever.

Here, OB means Ocean Beach.  It is a bit congested and tight as far as driving, but it is a cool beach.  Then there is Pacific Beach nearby which seems to attract drunk lunatics who stab each other under bizarre circumstances like while being run over or riding bikes and skateboards.

IB stands for Imperial Beach, which is the furthest south you can go without crossing the line into Mexico.  Tijuana is just south of this beach.  IB is the one where I'd have a place on the ocean if I could.

Some time ago I visited a relative of my friend, Sally, there.  Right on the beach, it was a memorable place and great times.  Sally lives a long way off so that all changed a bit.  However, I was invited to a party in IB this weekend.  Another case in which playing harmonica got me on the list.  The people wanted some music players so I guess I got lumped in with a few others.

This couple recently scored a condo which is on the same street as Sally's people but about half a mile north.  Their place is also ocean front but in a condo building, as opposed to a quad-plex like the Sally folk.  They are on the first floor with a large patio.  You walk off the patio and you are on the beach.

I said it before, IB is the best kept secret in SoCal.  I think you could enjoy ocean front there more than in LaJolla or many of the better known places.

Anyway, it was a nice gathering, and we had a great time in the living room playing music.   Three guitars, and more singers, and my own bad self.  I'm always impressed with people who seem in tune with one another and appear to find hosting a group so natural and easy.  It was a very comfortable evening.  I didn't manage to pick up any chicks, though, but it could yield results in the future.

this photo robbed from the intertube webs was taken very close to the party condo. Sally's people are to the left on the other side of the pier a ways. Pic doesn't do the place justice, but then I don't want to encourage riffraff to come settle there anyway.

I'm kind of sick of being the lone ranger.  Even so, if I don't fit, I can't pretend just for fear of being alone. Perhaps I need to work on being a bit more flexible and eligible.

It was not the type of evening which made me feel awkward or lonely though.  It has just begun to bother me some.  There is some indication of interest in some quarters but I don't quite feel what I'd like, so back at square one I guess.

Still, how cool is it to be playing music with nice people, in a plush crib, looking out at the best breaking waves you could ask for?  The water is a bit cool at this point for going in without a wet suit. That is the biggest drawback to this coast.  But the sound and feel of IB is tough to beat anywhere.

It felt all the better because I had been there before and knew something of the place.  Maybe IB has not seen the last of me.

Voted Too Early

Free Pot Offered To Lure Residents To Vote...

Not much else to say, except maybe I should have settled further up the coast.  If you can't vote often, may as well vote happy.

I wonder if I should have held off on that mail in.  Maybe Descanso or Alpine will get creative at the last minute; give away obamaphones or free gas.

Oh well, my ballot has already made it to voter central by now, where Igor probably opened it, read it, and tossed it in the trash.  How can a mail-in ballot possibly be secure and secret?

Sort of a civic placebo I guess.



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